Valentine's Day

We got out the face painting crayons for Valentine's Day.  There were hearts on cheeks- and for those who didn't want one, tiger whiskers. ♥

We used two paper plates each to create our card holders.  Just cut one in half and flip it upside down, staple it to the other plate and you will have an instant pocket. 

They colored and glued on hearts of all sizes and colors.  Smudge was pretty interested. 

It was time to pass out Valentine's!  This is such a good lesson in love for the kids.  They have been learning what it means to be kind to a person and how that makes them feel.  Valentine's are a GREAT way to be kind to someone!

The giving feels just as fun as the receiving.

 ♥♥♥

 ♥♥♥Happy Monday!♥♥♥

Preschool Math

Math worksheets are not appropriate for preschoolers.  Kids in the age range of 3-5 are just learning to recognize that 1 finger means one item, and 2 means two.  There is a clear difference between children counting in order quickly vs. actually knowing what the number means and counting that many items.  Preschoolers can do math, but it should be through play, sorting manipulatives and visualizing objects.  They are just now learning that if they are holding two items, they can touch each item and give the item a number, and that is what the numbers one and two actually mean.  Who knew preschool could be so involved?

We used pom poms, clothes pins and cups for this activity.  One small cup, one medium, one large.   They were given some instructions after they had been allowed some free time working out how to use the clothes pin and mixing the colors up.

"Please find all of the BLACK pompoms and place them into the LARGE cup."  This activity is so simple, but it still requires thought and control on their part.  They were very successful.

This is a great fine motor skills builder!  They collected several different colors and placed them into the correct cup.  It didn't feel like work to them- they were having fun!  Keep in mind that this lasted 15 minutes. 

 A change of manipulatives can be good at the half way point.   We moved on to the foam squares.  The idea was to place the squares onto the squares that were drawn on the paper.  So easy- but effective!  

After a little bit of time, I prompted them to try to create a tower.  They did that for a while.   Another way to incorporate math into the routine is to work on some patterning.  "Here I have one red block and two blue blocks, another red one and two more blue in a line.  What color comes next?" 

 For any of you who are interested in learning more about how to incorporate math in a fun way- check out Penn State On Demand Learning.  To keep my job, I am required to take a minimum of 10 hours of approved trainings every year.  Ten hours is not very much, but it can be really hard when I have to actually go somewhere and sacrifice family time and money.  This website offers so many great classes, ON LINE praise God, and right now several of them are FREE.  I love what I do and I want to be effective.

 Happy Valentine's Day!

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥

Giant Newspaper Hearts

I cut out two large newspaper hearts for each child.

I stapled the two hearts together almost all of the way around.  The kids were going to stuff the hearts, so they need to access the inside.  I then reinforced the newspaper with packing tape in the spots that would need hole punching to accommodate the pipe cleaner handle.  These hearts were large enough that we needed two pipe cleaners per child.   This prep work was appropriate for the kids that I had.  Older kids can do all of these steps themselves.

It should look like this before the kids begin their work!

 We used toilet paper.  It sure has been handy lately!

The kids got busy stuffing their giant hearts!

When the hearts were stuffed, I stapled the rest of the puffy heart closed.  The kids began to paint.  I gave them red and white paint.

It's pretty exciting to paint a 3D object vs. a flat piece of paper.  There was a whole different type of excitement going on!

They paid special attention to mixing the two colors together to create some pink. 

I love this project!  In the past the hearts we made were smaller, but since I only had 3 kids for preschool yesterday, we went big.  Go big or go home.

♥♥♥

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

♥Love♥

♫"The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round..."♫  This song has been very popular lately!  It's even more fun because we get to see a real bus several times each day.  The kids are noticing parts of the song on the REAL bus.  "Miss Nicole, look!  Real blinkers!!"   I love group time.  I also love that the kids enjoy singing short songs.  What a great way to start off our preschool schedule.

We discuss the weather and put up the correct forecast for the day.

I usually ask the kids if they can remember what the most recent letter we have learned is.  If someone answers it correctly, they get an MnM out of the good job jar.

The best part of group time is story time!  We have been talking about love and what it means when you love someone. We read that awesome book about a boy and how much he loves his dog.  It turned into a conversation about who we love and how we love our pets.  It then turned into a God loves us conversation.  One die hard Little Mermaid fan piped up, "But God does NOT love Ursula.  Nope, he doesn't love her."  I laughed so hard because she has been bagging on poor Ursula, the sea witch, for weeks.  Don't worry, I told her eventually that God loves even Ursula.  You should've seen the stone cold shock on her little face.  Funny tidbit-- yesterday I took one of those silly facebook quizzes to see which Disney villain I am-- Ursula!  

Anyway- books can spark great conversation!  I like to read it, communicate with the kids during it, and ask them questions afterward, as well as answer theirs.  It's much more engaging than being talked at.

We are working on the number 11.  I was drawing a blank, so we just created 11 smiley faces on our paper.

I drew some simple examples.

I love when kids draw faces.

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Kings Of Hearts

Plugging along with the letter K, we made some simple crowns.  Kings wear crowns.  All morning I had that nagging feeling that I need to let the kids know that Jesus is King of all of the kings and of all of the people, and he was so amazing that he would NEVER wear a crown.  I love that about Jesus.  

I realized how confusing it was to make a crown while trying to get the kids to understand the letter Kk. Oh well!   

I had these leftover hearts from a previous project.  I cut out some contact paper squares larger than the heart shapes.  We made stained glass hearts!

The kids stuck some Valentine colored tissue squares to the contact paper.  I try to have them fill it all in as much as possible.

When they said they were ready, I added some tacky glue to the heart and let them glue the hearts into place.

The kids aren't using scissors yet, so I trimmed the edges for them.

Ta-da!

This is STILL happening.  Zuko just really wants to be friends with Smudge.  In Smudge's defense- he is allowing the other cats to be in his bubble.  I caught these two playing a couple of days ago, but the second that Smudge noticed my noticing- he left the room.  Still, Zuko continues to follow him around and reached out a paw to touch him as he goes by.

Before the bus stop walk this morning we found Zuko up on the roof.  I got him down just in case he couldn't.  I'll bet that he was just fine, though.

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Love Bugs

Some years, I don't get caught up in the whole "heart art" thing.  This year I am all sorts of caught up in it.  There are some really great projects floating around the internet for Valentine's Day.  Please know that I am not a fan of Valentine's Day.  The whole idea of having expectations about gifts from someone you love just bugs me.  I'm thankful that my handsome hubby feels the same.  People are already writing in to "Dear Abby" about their significant other's who aren't complying with what the writer's feel they deserve as a gift.  Unbelievable.  ANYWAY- rant over... we created love bugs!

When the kids finished gluing the pieces together, (hearts included) we took turns using the red paint dotter.

Dot.. dot...dot...

Look at her tongue!  You can tell that she is concentrating on her dots.  I love it!

It felt great to get out into the fresh air for something other than the bus stop trek.  They decided to race. 

Even though it's cold outside, I still try to get out there and stand in it until I can feel the sun.  I'm thankful that the season will eventually end.  I'm ready for Spring!  The bulbs are popping up all over the place. 

We had a couple inches of snow over the weekend.  I have a feeling it will be our last snow.  I really was hoping for a couple feet that would stick around.  Ethan had to get out there and eat some.  Boys!

♥♥♥Happy Monday!♥♥♥